A/N: I'm still debating whether I should keep posting my work on here... Oh well, I'm much more active on AO3. I hope you all enjoy my Sinju sailor/mermaid AU! It is one of my favorite AUs for them 3
Feedback is much appreciated!
Sinbad did not like to believe that he was a skeptical man, or that he was closed-minded in any sense of the word. Even so, he did not easily fall victim to ancient lore of fables and fairy tales. He had been alive for far too many years (a notion that caused him to wince) to allow children's stories to sway his beliefs. As such, he did not believe in mermaids. While the creatures would make an occasional cameo in his stories every so often, Sinbad did not actively believe in their existence. Sinbad the Sailor had lived fourteen of his twenty-nine years on the seven seas, and not once did he have any reason to take mermaids for anything more than the stuff of legend.
"…Sin," began Ja'far, voice slipping from his familiarly composed tone. He entered the cabin early, as he tended to rise at the first ray of sunlight, but now the sun was bright and there was no excuse for Sinbad not to rise as well. "Do you…believe in mermaids?"
Sinbad guffawed as he rolled over in bed to face him. "Mermaids? What, did you have a weird dream or something?" he scoffed as he rolled to an upright position. "Any sailor would be a fool to give in to such child's play, you've said so yourself." Then, as he took in the paleness in Ja'far's features, Sinbad's throat went dry and his smile dropped. "…why do you ask?"
"There's…uh…" Ja'far rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know how to say this. Maybe you should just come out and see for yourself."
So he did; groggy-eyed and half asleep, Sinbad rose from bed and threw on his coat over his shoulders. He followed Ja'far out of the cabin, feeling oddly unsettled for once.
And there, splayed out across the deck, was a mermaid.
Rather, Sinbad supposed that the correct term for a creature such as this would be merman; after all, this was very clearly not a woman; but as he gaped at the thing, specifics were the last thing on Sinbad's mind. The creature thrashed and slammed its powerful tail against the wooden planks with a thud, fractured sunlight glistening in all hues of red and gold and amethyst off of deep, shimmering scales, and long, delicate fins draped all across the deck. Certainly, this was a mermaid if he had ever seen one.
"It was caught in the nets when I came out," Ja'far explained, "so I hauled it in."
Sinbad scrutinized the mermaid where it lay, and then his eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. Sunlight reflected off of layers and layers of gold jewelry—the dark-haired youth was drowning in gold—thick and bulky around his arms and throat, dangling from his ears and ornamenting his ebony hair, glinting even from a tiny stud in his nose. It was utterly bizarre to Sinbad; where could this simple-minded aquatic creature possibly acquire such fine jewelry? There must've been a hoard of gold down there.
"W-Well," Sinbad stammered, "I believe now, I'll tell you that."
"What should we do with it?" asked Ja'far, carefully eyeing the mermaid stretched out before them. Sinbad had learned that nowadays, there was little that could surprise his first mate. However, mythical creatures had been off the table entirely—the crew was the sort to laugh at the poor bastards who fell for such tall tales. Now though, it seemed like they were the only foolish ones.
Sinbad stared silently down at the mermaid—who remained unresponsive against the deck—when it suddenly gave a yelp of pain and curled in on itself. The poor thing was in a rather pitiful state—the coarse ropes of the net cut into his pallid skin and hopelessly tangled into his mass of inky black hair. He shot Sinbad a teary-eyed carmine glare, brows drawn together and lips pulled tight against his teeth; even furious, the creature was beautiful. Sinbad's eyes softened.
He knelt before the writhing mermaid, who flinched back at the sight of him. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you," Sinbad promised as he unsheathed the blade at his hip, and sliced clean through the coarse nets. There was an exhale of relief as Sinbad worked to unwind the long, muscular tale from its trap within the ropes, taking care around the deepest lacerations, and the mermaid was silent and aware even as Sinbad tugged his glossy hair free from the nets.
"Is that any better?" asked Sinbad as the mermaid sat up, with his glittering red tail still dripping scarlet onto the cedar paneling of the deck. He rubbed bony fingers over his pale wrists, bruised and swollen from temporary confinement, and gazed up at Sinbad from the corners of his crimson eyes.
"Sin…" called Ja'far from behind, "I think you should be more careful around that thing—"
"Oh Ja'far, come on! He's harmless!" As if to prove a point, Sinbad outstretched a calloused hand to brush against the mermaid's fair cheek with a tender caress, tilting the pale face to meet his gaze. "Such a lovely creature would never lay a hand on me—"
There was a loud "thwap" when that tail, glittering beautiful and iridescent under the light of the rising sun, rose up and smacked the sailor hard across the face. Sinbad howled and fell back, with a hand clutched against his throbbing cheek; that was not something that often occurred when Sinbad played his charm with women—but then again, this was no woman, or even a human for that matter.
"Ha! You think I'd fall for a shitty move like that?" the mermaid cawed, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "Get over yourself, idiot pirate!"
Sinbad could only stare, awestruck as the throbbing in his cheek grew. "W-What—?"
"Humans are all the same," the creature griped, grinning triumphantly down at the sailor. "But you're one of the dumbest by far!"
Ja'far sighed from behind them, reaching up a hand to massage his temples. "I should have known, with mermaids and their trickery…" Though watching this situation unfold was torture enough, he supposed that he could not blame the mermaid for the slap. Sinbad tended to deserve things like that.
"Oh, there was no trick," the mermaid assured, outstretching his long, slender figure in the sun. "I really was stuck, and the blood is real; you can check. But this one really needs an ego check, huh?" He jabbed his thumb in Sinbad's general direction, who made a sound much akin to that of a wounded animal. "I hope he doesn't talk like that to everyone he thinks is pretty."
"It's unfortunate," Ja'far agreed with a sigh.
"I do not need an ego check," Sinbad insisted with an incredulous look as he rose to his full height once again. It served him right for trying to be kind to this ungrateful creature; he should've known that it would only bring him suffering in return. "It's foolish creatures like you who need to tone it down!"
"Yeah, yeah, but at least I can admit that," said the mermaid, waving a lazy hand. "I'm Judal, by the way. Thanks for setting me free I guess. But it was your stupid net that caught me in the first place, so I guess I shouldn't be thanking an idiot like you, huh? "
Sinbad clenched his fists and took a slow, deep breath. God, this thing was a brat. Sinbad typically considered himself a patient man, but after just five minutes of this, he felt like he'd lost ten years off of his life. For a brief moment, he very seriously considered the profits that one could gain pawning an exotic creature at auction. This mermaid (merman? Sinbad still hadn't quite decided) would go for an especially high price, especially as he was so beautiful. But Sinbad could never do that; that was a fate too cruel even for the most irritating of creatures. Besides, there were always other ways to get what he wanted. Fourteen years of life as a pirate had proven that, time and time again.
"Alright then, sweet little fish." Sinbad unsheathed his blade and aimed it straight to the mermaid's throat, just so that a sliver of blood beaded beneath his chin. Judal gulped. "Why don't you start by telling me just where you got all of those pretty gold trinkets?"
With a frown, Judal flicked his tail and swiped Sinbad's legs out from beneath him, unable to hide a laugh as he landed with a painful thud.
"Not a chance, Stupid Pirate."